Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Assuming that you have the grades and can pass the background check, federal agencies often provide scholarships for graduate degrees in specialties of use in intelligence analysis and agency support. Some lines of study that might seem remote are of interest to the feds: mathematics; computer software; electronics; technical and scientific specialties; history; psychology; foreign languages; and so on.
Pick a field or fields that you like and have some aptitude for, then develop a career strategy that assumes devoting about five or ten years of your life to it. A scholarship, advanced degrees, and work for the feds in a prestige agency might not be your family's preference, but it would be hard to see it as a waste of your time and talents.
You might decide to make it your lifetime work, but you would not have to. Several years on, you might bail out and get a law degree or an MBA, for example, or go directly to the private sector.
As a career goal, forget the top government civil service positions and the attractive salaries. Those jobs tend to be hard to get, take lots of time, and involve petty internal agency politics, personalities, and cliques. Canny job hopping is usually better in advancing and getting better salary deals, even in federal service. There are often internal agency scholarships for further study and credentialing.
Time in federal employment can develop a valuable understanding of how government works -- and often does not. You can also develop useful skills and contacts if you are in the right kind of job, and federal agency work can be a valuable credential that jumps you ahead of contemporaries who went directly to the private sector after college.
Above all, be adaptable, and recognize that your life is going to have a lot more zig-zags and reverses in it than you presently imagine. Get Ben Stein's "Bunkhouse Logic" for a sense of how to navigate through life. For your sake, I would command that of you if I could.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380785439/002-4281202-5359224?v=glanceI would add: Never underestimate the scope and complexity of the federal bureaucracy. It is like the pop tart, it can be used for good or evil.
It is horrendously petty and political, but at the same time it can be worked like a charm for someone who knows the system. That's one reason officer experience can be so valuable, you learn to navigate those sorts of channels and you might make friends in Washington D.C.
A stint in uniform could go a long way towards revealing whether you would like a career under so much political machinery.